“These are not dark days…”

When I see the news with its talk of ruin, injustice, inequities (and iniquities) and failures in the world, it all seems very “gloom and doom”. Terrorism, the rise of militant Islam in the world, the impossibly high cost of health care, the high taxes, the unemployment, the failing educational system, man-made global warming etc., hurricaines, earthquakes, ad nauseum. These are the things that they are trying to get us to believe in so we’ll be too upset to resist their efforts at control because we’ll ASK them to come in and protect us from the bogey-men.

I try to keep my attention instead on all the opportunities that exist today for families to get ahead, for children to succeed, for adults to prosper. The Americans who whine about how hard it is here have no clue what it’s like to scrape together an existence in a third world country. I’ve seen the desperation in the eyes of beggars in Merida (capital of the Yucatan in Mexico) pleading for pennies to feed their diseased children another day — that’s real misery.

Why would 38 million illegal immigrants have flocked to this country if things were as bad as the news claims?

Here’s a great quote on the subject from Winston Churchill, written in the middle of World War II, with London being pounded by German bombs every day and night and a very real possibility of the obliteration of his country being threatened by the Nazis, who were certainly trying:

“These are not dark days; these are great days–the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.”

It’s not how right things are — sometimes things are not right at all; they can be quite horrible. It’s how right you make things go, where you are and with what you have and can scrape together as resources. We also have the saying, “Something can be done about it.” And it’s always true.

Anyone can seem to be doing well when propped up by a social system — but how right are they making things go? Are they contributing their own survival and that of their loved ones and the society at large, or are they sucking survival away from others?

Today I find myself thanking God that I live in this age of miraculous convenience, instant communication, increasing health and security. I’ve made a lot of things go right–we all have–to get to a position of relative security at this point in my life, for me and my children and grandchildren. There’s a lot more to do, and always will be — it’s all part of the great game of life.

For which, today, I am grateful to Providence and all those who’ve helped.